Daily Lesson for Wednesday 30th of April 2025
The land and sea imagery in the Bible, especially for prophecy, can be very instructive. Consider the case of the symbols of land and sea in Bible prophecy, which are contrasted sharply.
“Symbolically, when earth and sea are juxtaposed, earth often represents the ordered world, or even the land of Israel, while sea refers to the Gentile nations that menace it as the sea menaces the land.”—Beatrice S. Neall, “Sealed Saints and the Tribulation,” in Symposium on Revelation, book 1, ed. Frank B. Holbrook (Silver Spring, MD: Biblical Research Institute, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 1992), p. 260.
In this thinking, land is a place of stability, established on the government of God; sea represents the unstable turmoil of nations established on human pride.
With the idea expressed above as the background, read Revelation 12:15-16 and Revelation 13:1,11. Notice the juxtaposition between water and earth. How are they used, and what can they teach us about how to understand prophecy?
Image © Phil McKay
Notice that the dragon uses water to persecute the woman (the church). As we have seen, in prophecy water often symbolizes worldly governments and the turmoil and chaos that often attends them. Hence, we can see how Satan was able to use the masses, prodded by their leaders, to persecute God’s people through much of church history.
Also, Seventh-day Adventists have understood Revelation 12:16 to refer to the migration of persecuted believers to the New World. If our understanding of land and sea is correct, what does this say about the founding of the American republic?
Could we consider it to be “the earth” in the same way that the “Promised Land” was—a place set aside for God’s people? Could this be why the land beast first appears to be lamblike? Though America has never been the “New Israel” as some of its early founders liked to see it, for a long time it has been a land of religious freedom for millions of the world’s religiously oppressed.
Unfortunately, this lamblike beast will one day speak “like a dragon” (Revelation 13:11, NKJV). The United States, so long a beacon of religious freedom for the persecuted, will become the dominant religious persecutor! This is another example of what happened when humanity chose to rule itself instead of being ruled by God.
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